To me, Royce White appears like he's going to give up on the NBA. He just said that he's prepared to walk away from the NBA. Didn't say he was actually leaving, but with that kind of losing attitude, the future isn't pretty for him.

He's so talented, it's a real shame that he probably won't be in the NBA a couple years from now due to his issues.

Back in May 2011, after Z-Bo had roasted Perk in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals playoff series, Perkins refused to agree with teammate Kevin Durant's assessment that Randolph was the best power forward in the league, while Randolph told FoxSports.com's Chris Tomasson that Perkins is "too slow" to guard him and that "all Perk can do is foul me."

If you listen closely, you'll hear Perkins yell across the lane to Randolph, "I'll meet you by the bus," followed by Randolph yelling, "I'll beat your ass." Listen even closer and you will hear the moment the entire basketball-watching world went, "Ohhhhhhh, [EXPLETIVE]."

After the two players were separated, Perkins ran off the court in front of the Thunder bench and into a hallway, where he had another altercation with Randolph outside the postgame interview room next to the Thunder locker room.

The players were separated by Oklahoma City police officers. People in the postgame interview area heard something being slammed against the door.

Security members huddled briefly thereafter to discuss the matter, but no action was taken against either player.

Exactly. I've had a bad feeling about this ever since the trade happened in August. It's even worse than Brand since he was a free agent. This time we gave up Iggy, Vucevic and Harkless for this guy and it looks like a lot of time will pass before he even plays a game for the Sixers. After the season he'll get a 100/5 deal and play about 30 games a season averaging something like 14/8, because for 20 of those games he'll be getting back in game rhythm after the injury. This franchise is doomed.

rise wrote:To me, Royce White appears like he's going to give up on the NBA. He just said that he's prepared to walk away from the NBA. Didn't say he was actually leaving, but with that kind of losing attitude, the future isn't pretty for him.

He's so talented, it's a real shame that he probably won't be in the NBA a couple years from now due to his issues.

Just read Woj's write-up on the situation. Certainly very unfortunate, though it doesn't seem like the Rockets could be any more accommodating than they have been. Playing time is earned, not handed out as therapy, so while one can sympathise with him and hope that he can continue to get the help he needs to manage his anxiety disorder and be happy in his life, he's got to meet them half way if he wants to play in the NBA.

Spree#8 wrote:Exactly. I've had a bad feeling about this ever since the trade happened in August. It's even worse than Brand since he was a free agent. This time we gave up Iggy, Vucevic and Harkless for this guy and it looks like a lot of time will pass before he even plays a game for the Sixers. After the season he'll get a 100/5 deal and play about 30 games a season averaging something like 14/8, because for 20 of those games he'll be getting back in game rhythm after the injury. This franchise is doomed.

That's what a lot of people don't understand (going by what RealGMers among others are saying). My stand on that trade was that Philly messed up big time, taking the risk on a very injury-prone player who is very talented when he plays, but his injuries are slow healing off and on the court. Everyone else is like, "it's a risk the Sixers had to take, how often do you get to trade for a 7-footer as talented as him?" But they are going to be stuck with an $80M+ contract over their heads because the market will essentially guarantee he'll get $$$$$$$ regardless of his injury history. This next contract is going to be historically bad. Much much worse than Stoudemire's. The only reason I would trade for Bynum if Philly asked me for Tyrus Thomas and expirings, because he would be off my hands at seasons' end. Unfortunately, the Sixers traded an All-Star and two mid-round prospects for him.

Spree#8 wrote:Exactly. I've had a bad feeling about this ever since the trade happened in August. It's even worse than Brand since he was a free agent. This time we gave up Iggy, Vucevic and Harkless for this guy and it looks like a lot of time will pass before he even plays a game for the Sixers. After the season he'll get a 100/5 deal and play about 30 games a season averaging something like 14/8, because for 20 of those games he'll be getting back in game rhythm after the injury. This franchise is doomed.

That's what a lot of people don't understand (going by what RealGMers among others are saying). My stand on that trade was that Philly messed up big time, taking the risk on a very injury-prone player who is very talented when he plays, but his injuries are slow healing off and on the court. Everyone else is like, "it's a risk the Sixers had to take, how often do you get to trade for a 7-footer as talented as him?" But they are going to be stuck with an $80M+ contract over their heads because the market will essentially guarantee he'll get $$$$$$$ regardless of his injury history. This next contract is going to be historically bad. Much much worse than Stoudemire's. The only reason I would trade for Bynum if Philly asked me for Tyrus Thomas and expirings, because he would be off my hands at seasons' end. Unfortunately, the Sixers traded an All-Star and two mid-round prospects for him.

I partially have to disagree with you. The trade itself was a very good decision, it was a high risk high reward situation what we needed to take. If you just look back at the last 10 years of the Sixers, it's the epitome of the mediocrity zone, worst position to be in the NBA if your goal is NBA championship. This trade gave us a chance to get that much closer to instead of being mediocre to being elite, it's a small chance, but nevertheless. If you wanted to build a championship team, would you rather have the 2nd best center in the league or (one of) the best wing defender as your building block? Iguodala is a great player, but he's not a player to build the team on and given the contract situations, it was pretty hard to obtain a guy, who can he be the complimentary player to.

Now the part where I have to agree upon, given the scenario you created, is if the management gave the max to him, that could be a major mistake, that could set the franchise back for another couple years. Giving that contract under current scenario would be the mistake, not the trade itself. The part of the trade I really liked, was that we have a whole year to evaluate if Bynum could be the man for us. Given, if the signs about his health continue to be an issue, then you can whether offer him a lesser of a contract or if he won't budge try to go at another FA, we have close to max salary to offer (if you don't like this years, then you can try to maintain the flexibility for next year). It's not a perfect scenario, but tough luck, at least the management is giving out signals that the main goal is to achieve championship, not just dwindle around the 8th seed year in, year out.

Cartar wrote:The part of the trade I really liked, was that we have a whole year to evaluate if Bynum could be the man for us. Given, if the signs about his health continue to be an issue, then you can whether offer him a lesser of a contract or if he won't budge try to go at another FA, we have close to max salary to offer (if you don't like this years, then you can try to maintain the flexibility for next year). It's not a perfect scenario, but tough luck, at least the management is giving out signals that the main goal is to achieve championship, not just dwindle around the 8th seed year in, year out.

After posting that I just remembered the Sixers paying Kwame Brown 7 million to sit on the bench. Damn it.

Cartar wrote: If you wanted to build a championship team, would you rather have the 2nd best center in the league or (one of) the best wing defender as your building block? Iguodala is a great player, but he's not a player to build the team on and given the contract situations, it was pretty hard to obtain a guy, who can he be the complimentary player to.

Regardless of what the goal is, I'd rather have the top3 wing defender with some offensive skills who actually plays than the 2nd best center in the league who waits until training camp to start getting treatment on his bad knee and then goes bowling to injure his "healthy" knee. At this pace, it could turn out he never plays a game this season. What do you do? Give him that 100/5 deal? If you don't, you know there will be a moron somewhere in this league who will and you'll lose him, end up trading Iguodala, Vucevic and Harkless for Jason Richardson.

Like I said, you must be joking about that championship with Bynum as the main guy. We wait until he heals his knees. What do you think will happen next season? And then the next one? I can't believe you people have forgotten this guy is CONSTANTLY injured just because he only missed six games last season. That's why I hated the trade from the very beginning. This was as predictable as it gets. We trade for Bynum, play Kwame Brown at center. Awesome.

I agree about getting away from the perennial 8th seed, but I really don't think Bynum was the guy you guys should've gone after. I still think the team is good enough without Bynum (or Iguodala) to be solid enough to contend for the 8th seed, but not much more. To me Bynum has negative value as the Sixers' management will be pressured to keep him, given all they gave up to get him. Bynum's going where the money is, that much I am sure of. As an unrestricted FA, the Sixers will have to offer him more than anyone else can. I think letting him walk (or trading him by the deadline) would be the best thing for their FO to do, but considering all they gave up, I'm not sure it'll work that way.

As for Bynum getting you out of 7th-8th seed hell, I was never sold that he could be a consistent 1st option. Jrue and Evan Turner may draw the occasional double-team to leave Bynum for easy buckets, but it won't happen anywhere as often as it did when he had Kobe and Gasol next to him. Your roster when completely healthy, would've been a 4th-5th seed every year, essentially what the Hawks are trying to break free of.

Bynum's a type of player that could turn your franchise into a contender if healthy. There were signs of trouble and unfortunately the worst came out of it. But 8 times out of 10, a lot of teams in similar situation would have pulled the trade for Bynum.

Jrue is already drawing some double teams, but who would be stupid enough to double Turner? He can't shoot for shit and is scoring 11 points per game on 46% TS, he's exactly the guy you want shooting as much as possible if you're the Sixers' opponent. I'm starting to completely lose faith in the guy, the only positives about his game are extraordinary rebounding for a SG and decent defense. Unfortunately, I've never heard of a rebounding-specialist SG having a good career in this league.

Cartar wrote: If you wanted to build a championship team, would you rather have the 2nd best center in the league or (one of) the best wing defender as your building block? Iguodala is a great player, but he's not a player to build the team on and given the contract situations, it was pretty hard to obtain a guy, who can he be the complimentary player to.

Regardless of what the goal is, I'd rather have the top3 wing defender with some offensive skills who actually plays than the 2nd best center in the league who waits until training camp to start getting treatment on his bad knee and then goes bowling to injure his "healthy" knee. At this pace, it could turn out he never plays a game this season. What do you do? Give him that 100/5 deal? If you don't, you know there will be a moron somewhere in this league who will and you'll lose him, end up trading Iguodala, Vucevic and Harkless for Jason Richardson.

I probably would try to get him to a short term deal, definitely not max, if he says no, then goodbye Andrew. Sure, it would suck to look at that trade, but looking it more thoroughly it wouldn't be that bad. Iguodala, just like Bynum, will be a free agent after this year (he has ETO, but I think he will opt out), then you have to decide whether you extend him and try to make it work somehow or go with the same route as with Bynum, with a slightly greater scenario (no Richardson and his contract, instead some cheaper talent). Vucevic and Harkless both have already shown some promise in Orlando, but I think they are replaceable, especially when you look how the team has handled the past middle first round picks (Young, Holiday, Vucevic, Harkless, hell even Speights). In either cases we would have pretty good financial flexibility, no bad contracts, mostly 1-2 year deals, all moveable. Depending which class do you prefer, you could be player in Free Agency, both in 2013 and/or 2014.

Of course you could say that we moved Iguodala in another deal, but he's been on the block for a long-long time and the market wasn't that good, whether you look at what we got - Bynum (more valuable player, huge red flags), or you look at what Denver traded him for - Afflalo (decent player, but not close to turning this franchise around). Or you look at the tons of rumoured deals before, for Kaman or Ellis or Odom etc.

Spree#8 wrote:Like I said, you must be joking about that championship with Bynum as the main guy. We wait until he heals his knees. What do you think will happen next season? And then the next one? I can't believe you people have forgotten this guy is CONSTANTLY injured just because he only missed six games last season. That's why I hated the trade from the very beginning. This was as predictable as it gets. We trade for Bynum, play Kwame Brown at center. Awesome

Being elite class, championship, perennial ECF - no; the secon tier, having a shot at the championship in the next couple of years - why not, a la how the Orlando was back in 2009, couple of lucky bounces (this includes favourable matchups and/or injuries, e.g. Garnett in 09', Bosh, Howard, Rose in 12') and a little reshaping the team and we could make some noise. It's a long shot, but it's way closer to the trophy than we have been for the past decade (I think we both can relate to that).

rise wrote: agree about getting away from the perennial 8th seed, but I really don't think Bynum was the guy you guys should've gone after. I still think the team is good enough without Bynum (or Iguodala) to be solid enough to contend for the 8th seed, but not much more. To me Bynum has negative value as the Sixers' management will be pressured to keep him, given all they gave up to get him. Bynum's going where the money is, that much I am sure of. As an unrestricted FA, the Sixers will have to offer him more than anyone else can. I think letting him walk (or trading him by the deadline) would be the best thing for their FO to do, but considering all they gave up, I'm not sure it'll work that way.

As for Bynum getting you out of 7th-8th seed hell, I was never sold that he could be a consistent 1st option. Jrue and Evan Turner may draw the occasional double-team to leave Bynum for easy buckets, but it won't happen anywhere as often as it did when he had Kobe and Gasol next to him. Your roster when completely healthy, would've been a 4th-5th seed every year, essentially what the Hawks are trying to break free of.

So who would be this guy, who we could've realistically obtain and how?

Also, the offense would definitely be built upon Bynum, not Jrue nor Turner, so he should be the one handling the double teams, leaving Jrue, Wright etc. open for the three, not the other way around. As for Bynum, he's never been 1st option nor close to it, nor we know how well he can handle this job, but there aren't that many of them around the league anyway and he's pretty darn good one to take a chance on.

The Atlanta route ain't very pretty, but it's upgrade over the Philadelphia route that we've been riding for oh so long, comparing to Atlanta, we have a much much greater financial situation currently in our hands, now it's our chance to get the best out of it (given Bynum is healthy).

Jrue is already drawing some double teams, but who would be stupid enough to double Turner? He can't shoot for shit and is scoring 11 points per game on 46% TS, he's exactly the guy you want shooting as much as possible if you're the Sixers' opponent. I'm starting to completely lose faith in the guy, the only positives about his game are extraordinary rebounding for a SG and decent defense. Unfortunately, I've never heard of a rebounding-specialist SG having a good career in this league.

Should have taken Favors.

In hindsight everybody can be a good GM.

As for Turners role, he's far from what you would expect from him as the 2nd pick, but I think he's trying to embrace the Iguodala role, if you're not that great of a scorer, you try to influence the game with defense and the little things. Of course, that is a poor man's Iguodala. (I was really hoping him to finally have a breakthrough with Iguodala out of his way, but that hasn't happened)

Cartar wrote:I probably would try to get him to a short term deal, definitely not max, if he says no, then goodbye Andrew. Sure, it would suck to look at that trade, but looking it more thoroughly it wouldn't be that bad. Iguodala, just like Bynum, will be a free agent after this year (he has ETO, but I think he will opt out), then you have to decide whether you extend him and try to make it work somehow or go with the same route as with Bynum, with a slightly greater scenario (no Richardson and his contract, instead some cheaper talent).

From what I've heard, Bynum is a simple guy - he only cares about money. Do you really think he won't get better offers than a short, non-max deal (which would be the only reasonable offer from the Sixers side)? With how much they invested in him, I'm almost sure he'll get that max regardless and we'll screw ourselves over just like we did with Brand. Iggy's a FA after this season as well, but with him you know what you're getting and he definitely wouldn't want a 100/5 deal. He would certainly command a $10+ million, 3-4-year deal, but it would all be well deserved. Bynum will never play a full season and we still have no idea how he'll do as a first option.

Cartar wrote:In either cases we would have pretty good financial flexibility, no bad contracts, mostly 1-2 year deals, all moveable. Depending which class do you prefer, you could be player in Free Agency, both in 2013 and/or 2014.

Exactly. It seems however Sixers don't want to be a FA player. They would have been a much better one had they kept Iggy and especially Brand, instead of amnestying an expiring $18M like complete morons. By the way, can you imagine the market value Brand would have had this February? Combine that with Iguodala if you want and we could have gotten a really nice package, preferably made of players who will play.

Cartar wrote:Of course you could say that we moved Iguodala in another deal, but he's been on the block for a long-long time and the market wasn't that good, whether you look at what we got - Bynum (more valuable player, huge red flags), or you look at what Denver traded him for - Afflalo (decent player, but not close to turning this franchise around). Or you look at the tons of rumoured deals before, for Kaman or Ellis or Odom etc.

That's another thing I've been saying for quite some time. The Sixers wanted to trade Iguodala just to get rid of him, no other reasons. That's why he's been on the block forever and that's why offers for him included Ellis or Calderon and Ed Davis. If you can't get anything good for him, how about not playing hot potato on one of the best wing defenders and most versatile players this league has to offer just because he won't score 20 per game? About the trade, the Nuggets only became part of it because the Magic didn't want Iguodala and they needed a team who would take him. I bet the Magic would have been a lot more interested in Brand's contract hadn't some genius amnestied him. Throw another pick or something in there and maybe we could have gotten the bowler without giving up Iggy.

Cartar wrote:Being elite class, championship, perennial ECF - no; the secon tier, having a shot at the championship in the next couple of years - why not, a la how the Orlando was back in 2009, couple of lucky bounces (this includes favourable matchups and/or injuries, e.g. Garnett in 09', Bosh, Howard, Rose in 12') and a little reshaping the team and we could make some noise. It's a long shot, but it's way closer to the trophy than we have been for the past decade (I think we both can relate to that).

That's exactly what the Hawks have been for the past few years, as somebody already noticed here. It never worked out that way for them. We got a lucky bounce with Rose's ACL this year and went to the second round for the first time in forever and a half, now our luck has run out for another 5 years or more, because we'll be stuck with Bynum.

Cartar wrote:In hindsight everybody can be a good GM.

No doubt. I remember Turner being a no-brainer at the time. Though I also remember hearing that while he doesn't have a 3-point shot to speak of, he was solid from mid range in his Ohio State days. In the NBA, he's been quite awful even from that distance (but he's hit like 3 tonight already, hot damn). A perimeter player who's unreliable even from mid range is a liability on offense.

Cartar wrote:As for Turners role, he's far from what you would expect from him as the 2nd pick, but I think he's trying to embrace the Iguodala role, if you're not that great of a scorer, you try to influence the game with defense and the little things. Of course, that is a poor man's Iguodala. (I was really hoping him to finally have a breakthrough with Iguodala out of his way, but that hasn't happened)

Very poor man's Iguodala. Nothing to even compare on defense, plus Iguodala's a much better passer and shooter. And when Andre Iguodala is a much better shooter than someone, you know that someone just downright sucks.

I hoped he would break out this year as well. And I think we both know that if he doesn't this year, he'll probably never do so.

Much respect to Omer Asik. Not only has he proved to be worth his contract but also is shooting 73 % Freethrows this year. He barely shot 50% in his first two years in the league. Great signing by Houston.

benji wrote:Hollinger suggested it's due to the lack of Harden creating plays. More instances where Durant has to.

Supported by on/off court data from the last couple seasons.

I agree. I think Martin and Westbrook can help there a little, but a lot of the playmaking left over from Harden's departure will have to come from Durant. I'd like to see him get his previous scoring numbers and get about 4-5 assists a game. I think I can expect that much out of him by the end of the season. He has definitely improved his passing a lot since his first couple years in the league and I think he can improve more.

Spree#8 wrote:By the way, can you imagine the market value Brand would have had this February?

Not that much, he's horrible this season judging by his performance with the Mavs even while being given the chance to show what he's really capable of with an injured Dirk Nowitzki and big man that doesn't rebound in Brandan Wright.

Spree#8 wrote:By the way, can you imagine the market value Brand would have had this February?

Not that much, he's horrible this season judging by his performance with the Mavs even while being given the chance to show what he's really capable of with an injured Dirk Nowitzki and big man that doesn't rebound in Brandan Wright.

So? Anyone with an expiring $18M contract is very valuable, because every year you have a few teams that want to clear some cap space - it doesn't matter if he sucks. Of course, his contract is no longer in the books, I meant that his trade value would have been huge if the Sixers hadn't amnestied him.

Spree#8 wrote:So? Anyone with an expiring $18M contract is very valuable, because every year you have a few teams that want to clear some cap space - it doesn't matter if he sucks. Of course, his contract is no longer in the books, I meant that his trade value would have been huge if the Sixers hadn't amnestied him.

Its value for the team giving up the expiring contract are the players it would get in return. It's not like the Sixers can get quality players out of it from one team (if they do name names) and with such a huge amount the team that would be dealing with the Sixers would have to give a lot of players to match salaries and most of the teams that can give a lot of players would be rebuilding teams, which have crappy players to begin with that's why they're rebuilding.A multi-team trade would have been possible but then again give me possible scenarios of that if the Sixers did indeed keep Brand.

God I remembered again that Bynum is the same idiot who had a Playboy Playmate on his shoulder during a visit to the Playboy Mansion when he was supposed to be recovering his knee.

That kinda depends on what you'd expect back for him. I didn't mean we would get a franchise player or a package of all-stars for Brand's expiring contract, but we could get a good player and a couple of role players, something along those lines. No idea about possible scenarios and I don't really want to spend time thinking up something that's not happening anyway - the only thing that immediately comes to my mind is the Bynum deal. Like I already said, Orlando didn't want Iggy, so the three teams had to find someone who did and that happened to be Denver. Since the Magic are rebuilding, Brand would have been a great option for them, but he'd already been amnestied at the time. His contract was slightly bigger than Iguodala's, but we did take on J-Rich, so the deal might have worked without changing anything else. If we could have pulled that off, get Mr. Glass Knees without getting rid of Iggy, that would have truly made us a better team (in theory, of course - as it turns out).

Now we're pretty screwed, news is getting out that Bynum is possibly missing the entire season, so in the offseason we're facing a lose-lose situation. We can either give him that max and pay him $20M annually for sitting on the sidelines in a suit for most of the next 5 years or let him walk and gain nothing after investing so much in him.

By the way, we're somehow 7-4 after the first 11 games. That's pretty impressive actually, even though we haven't had the toughest of schedules so far. For a team that's built to utilize a bigman demanding double teams inside, but having a rotation of Kwame Brown, Spencer Hawes and Lavoy Allen at the center position, we're doing quite well. It's fascinating that all of the guys playing the center position for the 76ers are absolutely terrible and every one of them in his own, original way. Hawes is making me completely sick even more than usual, Lavoy has been a huge disappointment this year and looking more like that 50th pick than the great role player he was in this year's playoffs. And Kwame Brown is... well, Kwame Brown. Jrue is carrying this team and exceeding any reasonable expectations (he's even toned down his turnovers, 2.5 over the last 4 games) with some help from Thad and Richardson who's surprisingly solid. Oh, and it's nice to see Nick Young not playing like a total retard for a change.

Clippers/Thunder was a good one. The Thunder had some big leads but it was still a pretty competitive game throughout, culminating in the overtime. Fun buzzer beater by Ibaka to end the first half, too.

Sometimes that's the way it goes early on. Perhaps they are going to be better than most of us expected but they could well come back to Earth and drop down the standings as the season progresses, once other teams start playing a little better and they hit some rough patches (or simply stop overachieving).

The 2004/2005 Utah Jazz are probably a good example of that. They started out the season winning six of their first seven and were 7-3 through their first ten games, comparable to the Bobcats' current record of 6-4, but ultimately finished the season 26-56.

Andrew wrote:Sometimes that's the way it goes early on. Perhaps they are going to be better than most of us expected but they could well come back to Earth and drop down the standings as the season progresses, once other teams start playing a little better and they hit some rough patches (or simply stop overachieving).

The 2004/2005 Utah Jazz are probably a good example of that. They started out the season winning six of their first seven and were 7-3 through their first ten games, comparable to the Bobcats' current record of 6-4, but ultimately finished the season 26-56.

Still it's a hell of an improvement compared to last year when the Cats weren't able to compete with any team in the league. I actually think they are now ways ahead of the Wizards and Pistons in the East, which comes a bit unexpected to me.

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” - Mark Twain

SteveHTOWN wrote:Still it's a hell of an improvement compared to last year when the Cats weren't able to compete with any team in the league. I actually think they are now ways ahead of the Wizards and Pistons in the East, which comes a bit unexpected to me.

Absolutely, credit has to be given where it's due. They've come out playing a lot better than they did last year, particularly as they stumbled into that huge losing record to end the season. But it remains to be seen where they go from here, as a decent start could still end up leading to a disappointing finish, as we've seen before.

It is now officially confirmed that Bynum has weakened cartilage in addition to bone bruises in both knees and there is no timetable for his return. We'd better get used to watching Kwame, Hawes and Lavoy completely sucking ass. Just saw Kwame attempt to score from the post with an up and under. He actually faked out the defender, but blew it anyway.

Trade of a lifetime. Just let him walk in the summer. Please.

While we are a bad offensive team no matter what, we're probably historically bad when Jrue is off the court. No matter who's playing the point at the time - Ivey, Wayns or Turner - we just can't score unless Swaggy is hot at the moment. And if you need to rely on Swaggy to carry the load on offense, more power to you.

NovU wrote:Wasn't too impressed. Thought the Heat were gonna get blown out by what seemed to be Cav's superior offense. Clutch-genes of the Heat(vice-versa for Cavs) saved the day though.

Their offense looked superior and they were missing their best player. The Heat really shouldn't be happy with that win. If it wasn't for Cleveland leaving the most successful 3 point shooter of all time wide open, and dribbling out the clock when they were down a point they would have won.